A man cheated death by seconds when a freak lightning bolt sent a tree branch hurtling through the rear of his car. Bernard Williams had just removed his gym bag from the boot during a rainstorm when the bolt hit an adjacent willow tree catapulting a 10-foot long piece of wood across the road. The branch smashed into the car’s back window – directly where Bernard had been standing – and ended up in the alleyway next to the house after taking a tail light with it.

CCTV footage taken on the property’s security camera shows Bernard arriving back home in torrential rain and then grabbing his gym bag before running towards the front door of the house. But just four seconds after leaving the car there is a massive flash as lighting hits the tree and blows it apart. Jagged pieces of wood flew across the road hitting the car and neighboring houses.

Bernard, 55, initially thought the explosion on Wednesday afternoon was a sonic boom but his wife Alison, who was in her car waiting to pull on the drive, saw how close he came to being killed. “If he had been stood at the car four seconds later he would almost certainly have been killed or maimed,” she said.